Dialogue and the Construction of Knowledge in E-Learning:
Exploring Students' Perceptions of Their Learning While Using Blackboard's
Asynchronous Discussion Board

Abstract

This research explores students' perceptions of their learning while using
Blackboard's asynchronous discussion board. It aims to understand through in-depth
qualitative analysis how students perceive their construction of knowledge
while using dialogue in an e-learning context. While attempting to comprehend
the links between how a student perceives the use of dialogue and what they
actually do in the learning task, the study explores individual constructions
of knowledge in this environment, while outlining commonalities between different
learners. The research maintains that an understanding by the teacher of students'
perceptions of their learning while using dialogue in an e-learning environment
provides comprehension of the nexus between how students understand a phenomenon
belonging to a learning task and what they actually do in undertaking that
task. For the teacher, and underlying a heuristic teaching objective, an insight
into these perceptions provides a means from which to develop the learning
context into one that truly stimulates the individual and social construction
of knowledge. The study illustrates that asynchronous dialogue within a web
interface can provide an educational tool that is conducive to learning in
that it helps students construct knowledge as a result of using and interacting
within an online discussion board. The research shows that students use and
construct knowledge within the context in different ways, but go about learning
within a constructivist framework through which they gain knowledge and become
better learners.

Keywords

Discussion board, dialogue, E-learning, blackboard

1. Introduction

The last ten years or so have seen a phenomenal expansion and development
of computer technologies to support teaching and learning in just about every
area of education (Roblyer & Edwards,
2000). Whether the media form is narrative, interactive, communicative,
adaptive, or productive (Laurillard, 2002),
e-learning provides a means by which learners can study flexibly, as well as
a context in which learners and teachers alike can enhance the quality of education
in a contemporary society embracing new technologies (Moore & Anderson,
2003). In an era where demand for flexible learning approaches to education
is increasing rapidly, together with the ever-developing technologies to support
it, a study of e-learning is especially relevant today in education research.

In this study, e-learning and dialogue are explored broadly. While e-learning
embraces various technologies, including communications media, computer-mediated
communication, conferencing, digital learning, flexible learning, interactive
media, online learning, open learning, and technology, in this research the
focus is on student use of an online discussion board accessed through a web
browser. Furthermore, dialogue can be investigated across a number of learning
spheres, including activity, collaboration, communication, cooperation, cooperative
learning, discourse, discussion, group dynamics, group learning, group teaching,
group work, interaction, interactive, involvement, learning communities, and
syndicates, this study specifically investigates students' contributions to
online asynchronous "discussion" using Blackboard.[1]

A basic premise in this research is that discussion, or dialogue, is a valuable
educational tool and is helpful in students' learning (Larson,
2000;Laurillard, 2002;Wilen,
1990;Winiecki, 2003). However, the
main focus of this research is the use of tertiary student dialogue in an asynchronous
discussion board used in an e-learning context as part of a third-year tertiary
course. The study is concerned primarily with understanding students' perceptions
of their learning in this context. In particular, the research aims to comprehend
the links between how the students understand the phenomenon under study and
what they actually did in that context. Such a study can provide a way of assessing
not only students' perceptions of using dialogue in an e-learning context,
but also of measuring its value as an educational tool (Harasim,
et al. 1998;Hewitt, 2001,2003;Mason & Kaye,
1989,1990).

Comprehension of learners' perspectives as a way of understanding learning
in higher education has been emphasized by such educational theorists as Laurillard
(2002), Marton & Booth (1997)
and Prosser and Trigwell (1999).
Using the theoretical ideas of these writers and others, the research aims
to understand through in-depth analysis of four case-studies based on learning
themes how students construct knowledge while using dialogue in an e-learning
context. The study investigates whether students construct the same or different
knowledge in this environment. The context of this research project is particularly
relevant to the author, as the teacher of the university course under investigation.
Through this research the aim is to develop a context of learning through which
learners and teachers alike are able to benefit fully from the process and
experience.

As an approach that is particularly concerned with understanding students'
perceptions of their learning, the study has drawn on the initial stages of
phenomenographic study in terms of its exploration of the internal relation
between the "how" and "what" of this method. What is particularly
significant to this research is that phenomenography is concerned with students'
perspectives and aims to uncover students' conceptions and then to categorise
them in a typology. It takes a "second-order approach" in that the
emphasis is on the experience as described by the informant (Marton & Booth,
1997)

The work of Marton & Booth (1997)
provides a clear analytical framework for the use of this method, and parts
of this approach have been used in this study. This type of empirical study
suggests that there are a limited number of ways in which a certain phenomenon
might be experienced. Through analyses of categories of description, different
ways of understanding that phenomenon are proposed. Even though phenomenographic
studies construct a typology of student conceptions or lived experiences, which
are interpreted and constructed by the researcher as a way of articulating
the data, as Ashworth & Lucas (1998,
p. 417) comment, the research must "be sensitive to the individuality
of conceptions of the world–it must be grounded in the lived experience
of its research participants".

2. Methodology

The research involved an empirical investigation using qualitative approaches
to data collection and analysis. In other words, data were collected from informants
through interviews, and that data used to find quality information about the
informants' experiences. The participants in this research were 300-level (usually
third-year) university students taking the single semester course MUSI 327
(Music in Latin America – Advanced). In addition to three 50-minute classes
per week over a 13-week semester, an online component for the first six weeks
and one classroom-based seminar per week for the remainder of the semester
were required as part of the course. Thirty-two students were enrolled in the
course in 2004: 19 female and 13 male.

Forming a 5% assessment task, students worked online and commented on (discussed)
six journal articles for the first six weeks (one per week). For the remainder
of the course they worked in small groups of about 5 or 6 students for seminar
presentations of each article (one article per group). On entering the Blackboard's
discussion board, the student would see the six seminar topics listed on screen
with a request to discuss one each week. The online component was presented
to students as:

On-line discussion (5%). For weeks 1 - 6 (1 March – 9 April) you are
required to discuss these readings with other members of MUSI 327 on Blackboard
(each topic will form a separate discussion). In your online discussions
you should consider the reading, its relevance to the study of music in Latin
American cultures, and its impact on your own study on this paper. You must
participate in all of the discussions. You must refer to this discussion
of your topic and your contribution to it in your seminar (this will form
a component of the final mark). You are encouraged to comment on the work
and ideas of others, and to bring other relevant materials to the discussions
(online and in class). Your contribution to these discussions will form part
of your individual mark for this assessment.

On entering the Blackboard's discussion board, the student would see the six
seminar topics listed on screen with the following request attached to each
discussion:

Hello Everyone!

This discussion is intended primarily for MUSI 327 students, but MUSI 227
students may join in if they wish to do so. Our intention is to try and simulate
the face-to-face classes and seminars as best we can. For this session we
have two main discussion areas:

Read the article that is the focus of this discussion. Share one thing
that stood out for you in the reading you did for this "seminar".
Why did this particular thing stand out and what did you learn from/about
it?

Work as a group to question/probe one another so that the discussion
is a real discussion and not just a disconnected series of postings. Try
to write at least one short paragraph per response and refrain from using
short answers – "discuss" your ideas with others. We will
be referring to the discussions in each seminar later in the semester.

One function of Blackboard is that it can collect and archive the online discussions
that take place in its discussion board. While the discussion board was observed
on a weekly basis (sometimes more frequently), on completion of the first six
weeks of the course each of the discussion boards was archived and copied into
a word-processing document for further analysis.

The interviews were held with a sample of students and the analysis of the
transcripts formed the major part of the research process. The interviews were
mainly open-ended and semi-structured. Students were recruited by asking for
volunteers during a classroom seminar and followed up by recruiting those students
who showed an initial interest (ethical approval for the research was given
in March). The interviews were conducted in the researcher's work office and
each was recorded on cassette tape and mini disk (MD). The same main questions
were asked to each interviewee, with a semi-structured component being included
during the probing parts of each interview (i.e., between the main questions).

There were eight interviewees (five female and three male), each being given
a pseudonym in this study. Deciding on the type of questions to ask the interviewees
was reviewed several times. In order to attempt to gain a deep level of understanding
of students' perceptions of using dialogue as a learning tool on Blackboard,
the research method employed was designed in such a way as to gain as much
as possible an insider's perspective of students' perceptions of their learning
during the course. The interviews aimed to create a context whereby the informants
would articulate their own learning experiences in their own words. Three areas
of enquiry were explored: the first introduced the idea of learning for the
student; the second related to prior experience of the online environment;
and the third to students' understanding of the online environment in MUSI
327 (cf. Prosser & Trigwell,
1999):

1. Learning

Can you give me an example of something you've learned recently?

What is learning for you?

How do you best go about it?

2. Prior experience of the on-line environment

(Indicate shift in focus.) Have you had previous experiences of studying
on-line?

If Yes: what was it like? What did you do primarily? (If No, move on.)

What do you think is the main intention of an on-line environment? Or:
Why do we use these on-line environments in the University?

3. Understanding the on-line environment in MUSI 327

(I want to focus now on the first six weeks of MUSI 327.)

Can you talk about your experiences of the Discussion Board?

What is discussion on-line for you?

How do you go about it?

Choose a particular article to talk about - What did you understand by
it?

In what way did the on-line activity affect your understanding?

How do you think your experiences of the discussion board differed from
the face-to-face environment?

The transcripts of the interviews were coded in order to identify areas of
interest to the research theme. Discourse analysis in this context was based
on the researcher's interpretation, and the findings presented herein reflect
the method used. That is, as a way of attempting to understand the ways students
perceive e-learning in this context, key concepts were extrapolated from primary
data and piled by the researcher into categories. Because of the subjectivity
connected with phenomenographic methods in such a context, the interpretation
is clearly that of the researcher.

The analyses (case-studies) that follow in the next section look at what the
students said in order to identify a focus, something that stands out for them.
It is here that the study draws on the ideas of phenomenography:

An individual may actually express a variation across these distinct ways
of experiencing (understanding or conceptualizing) learning, and these ways
of experiencing learning are closely related to the actual tasks to which
they are being exposed. . . . the approach to learning adopted by an individual,
whether a school or university student, in a particular situation is a combination
of the way in which that person experiences learning and the way that he
or she experiences the situation. (Marton & Booth,
1997, p. 47).

The use of self-report on Blackboard provided a way of allowing the students
to portray their thoughts on selected readings, and the interviews provided
a context for students to report on their use of Blackboard. However, the use
of self-report does raise questions relating to validity such as recall accuracy
and the possible desire of informants to be viewed positively (Rubin, & Babbie
1993). Still, as a way of attempting to avoid questions of recall accuracy
and desires to be viewed positively, each of the eight transcripts was read
several times in order to gain an overall understanding of the ways students
perceived their own learning, and in particular online learning using Blackboard's
discussion board. Eight interviews provided a number of viewpoints that collectively
would contribute to the research findings in terms of quantity of data and
its quality. The aim was to understand the students' perspectives as a hermeneutic
event, the core ideas that underpinned their learning at one moment in time.
The "how" and "what" dichotomy in the approach helps to
show the internal relation between what the students say and how they went
about the learning task. The transcripts were piled or grouped in order to
identify the structure and focus of each, with the aim of attempting to identify
a specific perception of learning for each of the students. While there are
clearly similarities between each of the students' perceptions, it is the differences
that have been identified for the main part of the analysis.

3. Results

Of the eight interviews four different ways of perceiving online learning
were identified and grouped broadly into four categories:[2]

Practical experience (Rosemary)

Interconnections (Sarah, Katherine, Cindy)

Expressing own thoughts (Anthony, David)

Flexible learning (Larry)

These four categories were formulated after reading and re-reading the interview
transcripts and attempting to identify a key thought process that underpinned
the students' conceptions of using dialogue online. While subsequent analysis
identified further categories in the "interconnections" and "expressing
own thoughts" groupings,[3] the four broad types of
learning were used as the focus of the qualitative analysis of the interview
transcripts. These four categories are discussed in the following case-studies
with the aim of illustrating contrasting and distinct perceptions of online
learning: Rosemary, Sarah, Anthony, and Larry. Following the case-studies,
which aim to show differences, the discussion explores some of the concepts
that cross each of the students' perceptions.

3.1. Case-study: Rosemary

Online discussion is understood as a practical experience. The practical experience
for Rosemary reflects her perception of what learning is. "Learning is
something that's got to be practical". She articulates that learning is
something that can be "put into use . . . in everyday life, . .
. that [is] going to benefit you and others."

In order to comprehend the practical experiences concerning Rosemary's process
of learning using the online discussion board, it is necessary to explore the
ways that Rosemary understands her own experiences of learning in such a context.
While Rosemary only mentions the term "practical" twice during the
interview, qualitative study of the interview transcript reveals that she expresses
in other ways ideas that help to show the interconnection between what she
understands about the online learning task and how she understands online discussion.
It is this internal relation between what she did and how she understands the
process that helps provide a picture of her perceptions of the topic under
study.

The practical experience for Rosemary is working online. The process of using
technology, something she thought was included in the course by the lecturer
as a way of familiarizing students with technology, is part of this practical
experience. Moreover, the virtual environment creates a context that is perceived
as a practical experience: doing the readings, working online, interacting
with other students, and reading the comments of others on the discussion board.

When asked what she thought the main intention of an online environment was,
one of Rosemary's responses pointed out "interaction with each other," and
she stressed that she has "learnt about the joys of group work." It
is these social dimensions relating to her perceptions of learning in the course
that help partly elucidate her idea of learning as a practical experience.
The practical side of learning is also expressed in her description of her
own process of going about the task, where she emphasised that she "liked
those discussions because you can do it all through the keyboard," a comment
that perhaps reflects the practical experience of learning through technology
(i.e., a computer), although in this case the experience is one that includes
the process of entering a posting onto the discussion board.

However, contrary to her emphasis on practical experiences, she also comments: "[I]
loved the discussion board because I hate presenting." She also notes
that the process of doing this task was one that allowed her time to read the
articles and think carefully about how she would articulate a response on the
discussion board. Even though a live presentation is surely a practical experience,
Rosemary does not like such a context. Nevertheless, the process of using the
discussion board actually reinforced other dimensions of her learning, in particular
her in-depth analysis of the readings and careful consideration of the topic
before she made her posting. As she said, "it makes you think"; "[it]
makes you do the reading."

The discussion board was perceived as a practical dimension of her online
learning that had a clear social element. It facilitated "interaction
with each other." Her process of learning was one that included a constructivist
component where she interacted with others online, and the comments of others
made her think, it seems, at a deeper level of learning: "I found it really
interesting to see other people's points of view. . . . I
think people had some interesting point of views that I wouldn't have actually,
wouldn't have thought of looking at something from that kind of angle if I
hadn't."

It is this distinctly social process to learning that emphasises online learning
contexts as ones that can include a person-to-person dimension to learning.
Even though the learning process takes place in a virtual environment, one
that is sometimes connected with anti-social behaviour (Walther,
Anderson & Park, 1994), Rosemary stresses that her practical experience
of learning was indeed a socially constructed space that provoked interaction.
While the number of cross-postings by students was very small, Rosemary stood
out as one student who was making an effort to interact and make more than
the usual one posting.

The act of learning for Rosemary seems to be one that is an experience based
around the discussion of key points, while what she got out of the task in
question was clearly developed thinking. The relation between these two points
is highlighted by identifying her learning experience as a practical one.

3.2. Case-study: Sarah

Online discussion is understood as interconnections, and more specifically
as appreciating different perspectives. Sarah understands the act of online
learning as a process that should look at the ideas of others. For Sarah, an
ideal online learning situation that uses a discussion board is one where commenting
on what other people are saying is at the core. While commenting on the learning
task, she mentions: "It's not really discussion; it's more your own ideas
on the article, but ideally it would be people commenting on what other people
are saying, agreeing, disagreeing, er, saying what they think." Sarah
realises that the online context of this particular assessment task was one
that seemed to provoke students to respond by giving their own ideas, and that
in an ideal situation it would be one of generating a discussion and understanding
different perspectives of what other people thought. However, Sarah points
out that in actual fact her experience of working online on the Blackboard
discussion board was not really one of discussion at all. She emphasises the
fact that many postings did not always relate back to what other students had
said. Her idea of online discussion is something that should include more interactions
among users so that ideas are interconnected and logically structured.

The theme of appreciating different perspectives is extended at a deeper level
of analysis when one looks more closely at Sarah's ideas of learning. For Sarah,
comprehension is based on contextualisation, and, in the context of understanding
music, relating it to other fields such as history and politics (i.e., the
music's cultural context):

I think if you've done sort of different subjects perhaps apart from music
to link it all back so I don't know maybe it's easier if you've some politics
or some history. . . . I mean that's what I picked out of most of them is
the political side of it.

Commenting on the six articles the students were required to work through,
Sarah reinforces her emphasis on the context of music making as an important
way of appreciating other points of view, in this case from other disciplines
or fields of study that interconnect with music: "I think that in a lot
of the articles it was the main kind of idea was really the sort of political,
social history and how it related to music. Um I don't know I can't think of
a better way of putting it really."

Some of the experiences that stood out for Sarah while undertaking the online
task included learning about music history, writing informally, and appreciating
different experiences of others:

I enjoyed it because generally I don't like speaking too much in class so
it's I find it a lot easier especially okay well that's maybe later on in
the semester when we did get into that but I thought it was really good to
hear other people's ideas and things too because you just don't pick up on
the same things as most people. Yeah. And people have different experiences
and that sort of comes out.

It is here that Sarah identifies a key element in her online learning that
points to a constructivist learning process linked to the context of this task.
Sarah points out that she does not like speaking much in class, and the online
discussion board actually gave her a context through which she could hear the
ideas of other students and be able to confidently post her own ideas. While
not interaction per se, and acknowledging that interaction and appreciation
of other perspectives should have been at the core of the learning experience
for Sarah, she was actually learning in a process of knowledge construction,
and in a context that made this possible: "Just to read over what people
had written even before I read the article was quite good, because well I don't
know maybe it clouded my own views on it though."

In all, Sarah's perception and experience of the online discussion board was
one that included appreciating different perspectives, but these perspectives,
which helped in her knowledge construction of the task, were identified after
a deeper level of analysis. While Sarah noted her ideal discussion board context
and way of learning, she did in fact achieve these ideals to a certain extent
through her online interaction and self-identification of an appreciation of
the ideas of others in different spheres of online activity.

3.3. Case-study: Anthony

Online discussion is understood as expressing own thoughts. For Anthony, learning
is about knowledge and passing it on, and in order to achieve this he perceives
his learning process as one of doing, learning through experience. This is
evident in his comments on past learning experiences:

Well I did a test, well it's called a kinaesthetic test and it turned out
I was a K so I'm a learner by doer, learning by doing. So I learn by doing
it, apparently, that's how I learn best by actually doing it. 'Cause there's
different types of ways of learning.

Anthony's "how", in terms of how he understands online discussion,
was that it was about commenting on what other people are saying, commenting
on the ideas of others. He stresses social (virtual) interaction with others
as part of the learning process, and notes the importance for him of elaborating
on what other people are saying. However, these ideals were not observed in
what he actually did during the learning task. Even though he read posting
from other students he did not change the ideas he had already formulated from
the article. His aim was to read the articles and to express his own ideas:

I just found a lot of it you know the comments that people did do was regurgitated.
. . . You know people were commenting on what I said and
stuff like that as well and yeah my main aim was really to just read every
article and to put you know my ten cents worth in and do that side of the
discussion.

It is interesting to note that out of the each of the students interviewed,
only Anthony had not had prior experience of learning online or using Blackboard.
Also, Anthony made just one posting to each of the six online learning tasks,
and even when Rosemary commented on something Anthony had said, he made no
response. Furthermore, he notes that for him the amount of agreement in the
discussion board was not in keeping with his perceptions of the aim of the
task. Ideally, students should be:

Commenting on what other people are saying. Er maybe elaborating. There
seemed to be a lot of agreements, just reworded agreements. Um which is probably
why I didn't sort of go back and sort of say anything twice really. I mean
I read what other people were saying. There seemed to be a whole lot at the
beginning and not much at the end.

It seems that once he had read the comments of others he formed an opinion
about the value of the postings. He criticises other students for simply posting
summaries of the reading and for not really forming their own opinion.

In connection with Anthony's perceptions of learning online, he commented
that it was about getting his own thoughts across. In the context of the course
under study, Anthony and David, two of the three men interviewed, both emphasized
the importance for them of getting their own ideas across in the online discussions.
In the online learning context using discussion board, it is interesting to
note that some research comments on how students generally agree with each
other and there is very little disagreement (Nussbaum
et al., 2004). For Anthony, however, and to a certain extent David, this
is not necessarily true.

While Anthony's views might be seen as an individualist approach to learning,
he was also engaged with the context of learning in that he noted his interest
in the fact that different people had different ideas, and that these ideas
were interesting. When asked to talk about his experiences of the discussion
board, Anthony distinctly commented on his tendency to post his own individual
thoughts regardless of what had already been posted:

Well I guess, um, as I did the readings I was writing down specific points
that were sticking out to me and I formed an opinion on that reading and
like er wrote that down as you know what I got out of it and what it meant
to me. How I perceived it . . . . It was interesting seeing
how other people perceived the same article and there was a lot of different
things for different people.

Working online meant that Anthony had time to do things; there was time to
form an opinion in his own space; and there was no concept of competing with
other students as sometimes found in the classroom context; it [the discussion
board] was really effective.

Anthony's idea that learning is passing on knowledge reflects his own approach
to the online learning task. His postings of his own ideas (expressing own
thoughts) was a means through which he would pass on his knowledge to others.
Through his experience of online learning he sees the passing on of knowledge
a key component. Expressing own thoughts was part of what he did and how he
perceived it.

3.4. Case-study: Larry

Online discussion is understood as flexible learning. When asked how he goes
about learning, Larry responded by saying: "I learn by myself . . . quicker
than if someone was giving me lessons." Out of the eight interviewees
only Larry has had prior experience of using an online discussion board as
part of his learning, and he liked the fact that "you get an assessment
through conversing [online]." He points out that "you can just fit
it in."

The idea of flexibility while learning online is often pointed out in research
in this area. For example, while researching students' perceptions of distance
learning, online learning and the traditional classroom by utilising a model
of the diffusion of innovation, O'Malley & McCraw (1999)
note several advantages as perceived by the students, including saving time,
fitting in with schedules, and allowing learning to take more courses. While
the idea of flexible learning does permeate the ideas of other interviewees
too, for Larry it was a concept that seemed to be on the foreground of his
ideas of online learning.

The importance of flexible learning for Larry was evident in many places during
the interview. While pointing out his like of being able to "look at what
other people have said," and that "they might change your mind completely," he
stresses that in class students are not always able to return to ideas when
someone says something. For Larry, his ideas of the intention of an online
learning environment are primarily to allow for "extra teaching without
putting in the class time." "We can fit it around our own schedule,
we get information from you and from each other."

Also, he also places an emphasis on the technology of online learning, in
particular liking the links that are possible to off-site information. He comments
on a previous experience of using a discussion board and posting a picture
of something he was referring to, which he had searched for on the world wide
web and then placed on the discussion board:

So that's a classic example of what I was talking about in my actual post
that I was making. I was making a point and then I found an example of it
and I could just go show and do that within five, ten minutes. Whereas you
know before maybe you'd have to well if someone raised that in class there's
no way I could really go away, do that and then bring it back and try and
change the ...

When asked what online discussion was for him, Larry responded by noting not
only that it is a context for exchanging ideas, but also one where he could
think about ideas before responding to them, perhaps pointing to the fact that
the online environment allowed much more flexibility in learning time than
during in-class discussion:

Um, well it's really easy to exchange ideas if you sort of put the thought
into it. I think it's not something you can just log on, look at what someone
said for about five minutes you know, look at, and then blurt out an answer
in two seconds and then leave. Um I found that each time I was sitting there
for about half an hour to an hour debating what I was saying and refining
it, sort of just going like, uh, do I want to say that, no that's not what
I mean, how do I write what I'm thinking, um put it into words and terms.

Larry's structure of the experience was based on his ideas that the context
was to provide a flexible learning experience. In this context he had time
to look at the online comments of others, ones that might influence his own
opinion of something, and he could exchange ideas with other students and the
teacher. For Larry, the online component provided a context where everyone
was able to communicate more or less in their own time, although not everyone
did actually contribute. It was an easy context in which to exchange ideas,
and a different way of communicating and learning.

How Larry went about the specific task was that he was certainly affected
by the comments of others. He had the time to read other comments and to think
about the carefully before making a response. While he notes that people sometimes
went off track in terms of the points they were making, he was at least reading
the ideas of others and perhaps being influenced by them.

4. Discussion and Conclusions

Learners learn differently (Marton,
Hounsell & Entwistle, 1984). For the four interviewees discussed
in the case-studies, using the online discussion board meant something different
for each of them. While there are clearly concepts that link each or at least
many of the case-studies (e.g., flexible learning and being interested if
not influenced by the postings of other students), it is with the differences
between the students that the researcher can begin to comprehend variation
in perceptions of learning while learners are working on the same task.

By looking closely at four case-studies, it has been possible to explore the
structure of learning for some of the students taking MUSI 327. On one level
of study, the students' experiences of learning have been identified as different
perceptions of the online learning task, while on another level of study there
were some similarities between them. The internal relationship between the "how" and "what" parts
of the analytical framework that has been the focus of the analysis has revealed
some contradictions between how the students perceive online learning and what
they actually did. This was particularly evident in the responses that commented
on the lack of real online discussion, which should have occurred more frequently.

For some of the students in MUSI 327, although certainly not for all of them,
the online learning task resulted in a deep level of learning of convergent
activities such as analyzing, synthesizing and evaluating not only the required
readings, but also the ideas presented in other postings. While the context
can be understood to have allowed students to experience the task differently,
it also allowed students to work at a deeper level, one that revealed a constructivist
approach to learning in a learner-centred context that seems to have fulfilled
one course objective for this particular learning task (cf.
Ramsden, 1984).

For the teacher, the variation in learning is an important point to note and
one that creates a problem for educators. If the teacher sets the same learning
task for all the students in a class, how can the teacher assess the learning
according to the same criteria if each learner learns differently? What is
important to emphasise, however, is that the assessment criteria in such a
context is one that might be built around learning processes (the construction
of knowledge) rather than building a knowledge based around facts from within
a specific discipline or field. That is, each of the points noted above is
not based on factual knowledge, but on learning processes connected with the
learning task. It is these processes that are inherent in the online learning
task that have been emphasised here in order to stress the context as one that
necessarily requires careful consideration with regard to assessment. Furthermore,
the online discussion board environment does not lend itself well to conversation
analysis in terms of what Winiecki (2003,
p. 193) has identified as a de facto technology of conversation with
four fundamental components: turn-taking, overlap, repair, and formulations.

There are also several more negative aspects that should be noted, in particular
a low number of online postings, and a low number of online interactions (i.e.,
responses to other postings). Why did only 69% of the students taking the course
participate in the online discussion? For the students who did participate,
why did so many of them not actually participate in a deeper level of online
dialogue with other students, which after all was what most of them identified
in the "how" part of their perceptions of their online learning?
The lack of participation may be linked to the relatively low percentage of
marks allocated to this particular activity – just 5%. Some of the students
interviewed identified this as something that could be increased in future
years in order to entice more students to participate. There may indeed be
more of a balance to be struck between the students' workload and the weighting
of the assessment. Also, as commented on by Edelstein & Edwards (2002),
the teacher or facilitator might decide to include more threaded discussions
as a way of generating interaction among the learners. In other words, the
facilitator must build a framework around the notion of online discussion,
help the learning to build an online community, and the learners must be part
of that process for it to succeed (see also Chen, Ou & Picciano, 2002; Nicol,
Minty & Sinclair, 2003;Orey,
Koenecke & Crozier, 2003;Vrasidas & McIsaac,
1999).

Another explanation of the lack of online postings might have been the result
of no or very little previous experience of using online learning, let alone
online discussion (on factors influencing student attitude to online learning
see also Kear, 2004;Mason & Weller,
2000;O'Reilly & Newton,
2002;Shephard,
et al., 2003). Of the eight interviewees, only one had not used Blackboard
before, and for the majority of the interviewees their only reason for using
Blackboard prior to MUSI 327 was for data retrieval (i.e., lecture notes) or
for emailing staff or students. Just one student, Larry, had used a discussion
board in e-learning prior to taking MUSI 327, although he still made just one
posting per discussion board, and in only one of the discussion boards did
he refer to another student.

As for the students who did participate in the online discussions, one wonders
why their perceptions were not played out on the surface level of discourse.
An answer to this might simply be that the context did not encourage students
to do this: the explanation of the task; the intervention, or lack of intervention,
of the teacher. Indeed, the teacher might have provided more descriptive course
notes explaining how the students should work online. After all, only one of
the eight interviewees had actually worked in this way before. Furthermore,
more intervention from the teacher might have been made. While one drawback
of working online for the teacher in terms of time commitment is the amount
of intervention that could be made, there is clearly a balance to be made between
too much intervention and not enough. After all, one of the objectives of the
online learning context was to create an environment that generated student-centred
learning. Still, as commented on by Bullen (1998,
p. 1), participation and critical thinking in online university distance
education is dependent on several clear factors: "appropriate course design,
instructor interventions, content, and students' characteristics." As
pointed out by Nicol, Minty & Sinclair (2003),
the social dimensions of online learning are qualitatively different to classroom
learning.

While stressing the social construction of online meanings, Bond & Robertson.
(2002) make several suggestions
as to how to facilitate the social construction of knowledge in a such virtual
spaces:

A shared area of interest

The presence of a cognitive challenge

A willingness to engage with that challenge and put oneself in a position
of risk; to think publicly

A level of intellectual honesty; a willingness to acknowledge that one
doesn't know

A state of arousal (intrigue, curiosity, fascination)

An emotional/intellectual commitment to pushing the boundaries; an openness
to the new

A willingness to pose open-ended questions rather than provide answers – to
engage in inquiry

A close attention to the other; in particular a willingness to listen with
care and to work with the contributions of others

An expectation of response; which in turn leads to

A negotiation of meaning.

In making these suggestions Bond & Robertson (2002)
draw directly from their own research of online dialogue and use content analysis
as a method of interpreting that data. In consideration of such recommendations,
the teacher should always be aware of such aspects of context as:

How do teachers want students to experience learning?

What effect do different ways of learning have on students?

How should the teacher design the curriculum to support different ways
of learning?

In all, this study has shown that while there are clearly different perceptions
of using Blackboard's asynchronous online discussion board amongst the students
of MUSI 327, and that there are some similarities that permeate across a number
of these, the online discussion board provides a way of learning that encourages
students to work at a deeper, reflexive level of thought that constructs knowledge
that includes an awareness of the ideas or interpretations of others (i.e.,
internal dialogue – Biggs, 1999;Bruffee,
1984;Laurillard, 2002;Vygotsky,
1962). It encourages a learner-centred approach to learning; it encourages
a constructivist approach to learning; and it seems to generate an enthusiasm
to learn that filters across other spheres of students' learning. The variations
in learning help show how the same learning task might have a different meaning
for the learners, and by understanding the qualitatively different ways that
learners experience a certain phenomenon, the teacher is better equipped to
make sense of the ways learners proceed during a learning task. However, the
moderator will always be ultimately responsible for constructing the space
in which students can learn online, as well as nurturing through direct intervention
students' own individual learning pathways (Laurillard,
2002). Moreover, in doing this the teacher or facilitator will in due course
become more reflexive of the learning context (McShane,
2004).

The paper has been written as a result of its writer's exploration of a teaching
context with the aim of enhancing the quality of teaching and learning in one
particular university course. Ultimately, this study is applied research that
aims to help learners achieve clear goals and for the teacher to address specific
pedagogical issues that are relevant to the context of the course in question.
Overall, therefore, the reason for this approach is that if the results are
utilized successfully, the development of the context under discussion would
not only have a positive impact towards understanding e-learning and dialogue,
but also for those learners who form part of this particular teaching context,
the students and the teacher.

[1] Blackboard is
a computer interface designed for use in education and includes an asynchronous
discussion board as a tool through which learners might socially, albeit virtually,
interact in one way or another (see http://www.blackboard.com).
Blackboard includes a number of features, including notice boards, document
storage, online assessment, communication (e.g., email, discussion boards,
classroom), web links, etc.

[2]One of the eight interviews
was particularly difficult to categorise due to lack of data made available
by the interviewee. It was thus omitted from analysis.